A) Please explain the reported injection of £100m as I am also at a loss as to explain how that will actually help anything, beyond perhaps allowing for cheaper tickets across two seasons which they'll never do anyway. B) Spending more isn't the only way to improve performance. Spending wisely is. Enough dropping £30-40m at a time on youngsters. Enough breaking our transfer record on bang average players like Richarlison and Solanke. Either spend it on actual quality, or let the academy players have a go. As I said after yesterday's game, I see zero evidence that Odobert or Tel are any better than Mikey Moore. They cost a combined £48m and he was free.
It’s not just spending more, it’s not wasting it. £60m on Richarlison. £65m on Solanke. £55m on Simons. £40m on Gray. £30m on Tel. £25m on Odobert. Horrific wastes of money and that’s just on the current squad. ENIC also released a club statement not so long ago talking about an injection of cash, if that cash isn’t meant for transfers then **** them for posting such an article because fans couldn’t give a toss if that cash is going towards hotel projects and the like. If they demand we pay extortionate ticket prices then we can demand they spend through the roof on good players.
Extract from Jay Harris’ piece for the Athletic: “If Spurs had been more clinical in the transfer market, he would have been playing for them in this one, instead of embarrassing them”. A brutal yet accurate assessment of the Eze fiasco. We had about 4-5 weeks to get him over the line, bottled it and ended up with a player that can’t even get in the starting XI over the awful Odobert for our biggest game of the season.
We were never going to sign Eze. He wanted to go back to Arsenal, it's that simple. The club of dictators, sex offenders and other assorted scum. There's clearly something wrong with him.
It made no sense. The filth lined up with barely one striker. Why pick 3 centre-halves? If anything he should've packed the midfield and instead he went with only 2 in there.
Agreed. And it doesn't help that Frank seems fixated on the Palhinha Bentancur pivot as being able to control games, when overwhelming evidence shows that the former isn't comfortable enough on the ball to do this, and the latter is simply invisible 9 games out of 10 and rapidly becoming one of my least favourite current players.
It’s not that simple though, we had 4 weeks before Arsenal even bid and they only bid because of the injuries they picked up. He’d have been a Spurs player if we didn’t do our usual haggling game.
Even Dermot Gallagher says that Eze's first goal was offside: https://www.skysports.com/football/...van-dijk-murillo-and-ebere-eze-goals-analysed The other pundit is Jay Bothroyd, a former filth academy player, who agrees.
Bloody hell, already getting the players opinion’s piece, that usually comes after about 18 months. “THFC want to give Thomas Frank time to get things right, despite fears around the club that Frank’s numerous changes have contributed to inconsistency and the team’s lack of attacking potency. Some players are thought to be keen for Frank to focus more on the strengths of his own team, rather than the opposition, although it is unclear how strong and widespread that feeling is.”
Have the players forgot last season? Attacking and playing the same way most of the time regardless of the opponent, that worked out well for them didn’t it. The club have to back the manager this time.
It’s all rumour at this stage but it’s interesting if true - it’s what I was speculating about upthread earlier. Frank needs to set his stall out on a way of playing with this group and try and get really good at it. The game to game tweaks can come once we can reliably control and win games. And he can evolve as players come back available and/or we add in the market. The overly reactive way we’re doing things at present is doing nobody any favours.
Look at almost any club and there will be a long list of disastrous buys. Arsenal and Liverpool have tended to avoid them recently which is why they are doing so well but that won't last forever. Man Utd and Chelsea have probably been worse than us but that will even out too. Man City have quite a decent long term record though.
Problem so far is that Frank is doing just that too, except he’s taking a more cautious style of play. Ange generally tried getting about 8-9 players in the opposition half which made us so easy to cut through, Frank’s getting about 8-9 players in our own half which makes us so limp. We’ve done a full 180 when ideally we needed to do a 90.
What a load of rubbish. Click bait from whichever no mark source came up with it. Not a chance the board are even having that discussion as overall we’re doing okay. Then they’ve just regurgitated what a lot of the pundits, fans etc outside the club have said.
I’d imagine there’s probably some truth too it, albeit the amount/ extent is less predictable to tell. The players haven’t looked overly committed in a few games now, I could be reading too much into that but I’d guess it’s because they don’t believe in the formation/ tactics being set out. For me it was absolutely criminal what we saw yesterday, both from manager and players, there was no commitment from those on the pitch and little conviction from those on the bench. I think he’s got to find a way to get Bergvall and/ or Sarr in the side. Sarr started the season superbly then just seemingly got dropped. Bergvall offers a more creative perspective that few others have, even if he’s not quite the defence-splitting type of creator. Take Odobert out the side as well and spare us his ‘flick of the leg/ drop of the shoulder only to run into an opposition player’ move too, done with that kid.
There were and are measurable concerns long before this game, going only by the numbers. However there are also currently mitigating circumstances for the manager. How Frank deals with the Xmas + Jan fixture melee (both PL + CL) is the big test to come. Only then will we be able to discern what the likely outcome of the 2nd half of the season will be,
Frank played a back four, three in midfield and two wingers v City to have bodies in midfield and to provide an attacking threat on the counter (which proved to be significant). Why not play a similar formation v Arsenal? Especially, as you say, because three centre backs were not needed to mark one makeshift striker. Playing like Stoke and hoping to take advantage of a set piece or a mistake always seemed flawed, especially once the first goal went in.
Agreed on getting at least one of Sarr/Bergvall/Gray in there. Each of them is much more of a connecting tissue for the midfield than Palhinha and Bentancur are and we need that kind of option in midfield to help us control games there a bit more. I want to see something like Vic Porro Romero VdV Udogie Sarr Palhinha Kudus Bergvall Xavi RKM Where it basically turns into this on the ball: Porro Romero VdV Sarr Palhinha Kudus Bergvall Xavi Udogie RKM You’ve got the width from Kudus and Destiny, and you try and get as many players around Xavi in the left half space as possible so he can combine. Sarr hoovers up second balls and can support the press with Palhinha more of a screen, and one of them can crash the box if they need to as a late runner.
